Chapters (44)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Books by Julie Murphy
- Back Ad
- About the Publisher
“Are you okay?” Hannah asks in a low voice while Clementine is in the kitchen heating up some queso.
I open my mouth to talk and then realize a few slow tears are rolling down my cheek. “Oh, yeah. Me? I’m good. I’m fine.”
Hannah eyes me suspiciously. “When Bianca Blanco won a couple years ago, I got that tingly feeling behind my eyes. I kind of still do.”
Hannah is Afro-Dominican, and Bianca was a Dominican queen who spoke a mixture of Spanish and English and had a signature phrase that caught on all over the internet. Two years ago, she was the first Dominican queen to win ever after a couple of near misses during previous seasons, and she became infamous for her catchphrase, Don’t you wishy you could be this fishy?
According to Clem, Hannah’s grandma got so into the show that season that she made a Dominican feast for the season finale and invited all their neighbors.
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
Lucas: I’m working until 1am if you want to swing by.
My cold, dead heart flutters as I type back.
We’ll see. Dad is working all night, so maybe.
Lucas: Really want to see you. Maybe we can talk too.
Talk? Ha! Lucas. Oh, Lucas. Lucas is my highly problematic and slightly older (literally by a few months) booty call. Is it still a booty call if you’ve never gone all the way? I guess he’s more like my Very Handsy Make-Out/Sometimes More Call.
I would say it’s complicated, but it’s not. What it is: two horny boys who like to make out in the stockroom of a gas station. We met last summer when I got a flat tire down the road and he let me hang out inside the gas station where he works until Dad could bring me a spare. We ate ice cream and flirted. I wasn’t sure if he was gay, but I found myself stopping at the gas station for Mr. Freezee’s soft serve ice cream every afternoon until Lucas made the first move, and we’ve been making out in the back room ever since. Lucas is charming and polite in that perfectly southern way, and if I’m being honest, he’s everything I dreamed of when I was a little boy and imagined someone sweeping me off my feet. But even though he is all of those things, he can’t be any of those things for me.